October 1, 2026
ATLANTA — Brian Cochran, running for Georgia House District 47, says his bid for office is rooted in convictions shaped by two arenas he believes Christians cannot afford to ignore: religious freedom and the protection of unborn life.
Cochran is seeking the seat being vacated by Rep. Jan Jones, who is retiring after more than two decades in the House. Jones is the longest-serving Speaker Pro Tempore in U.S. history.
Cochran said he did not plan to run for office until he began working with pro-life groups on House Bill 441 last year. That legislation would have extended protections to unborn children from conception.
In meetings with lawmakers, he said he repeatedly heard what he described as political answers — that abortion restrictions were too risky because lawmakers needed to protect their seats.
When Jones announced her retirement, he said he saw it as the moment to step forward. “It really wasn’t until Jan Jones announced her retirement that I knew that I was going to run,” he said.
Cochran first drew wider attention in 2020 during a religious freedom dispute while he was a student at Georgia Tech. He started a pro-life student group and said the group’s attempt to host a campus event featuring pro-life advocate Alveda King was denied student government funding because officials deemed the event too religious.
Every Georgia Tech student pays activity fees that support student organizations, Cochran explained, and those funds are intended to be distributed fairly for student programming. But when his group applied for funding to host King, officials denied the request and relied on rules that, he said, he later learned were unconstitutional.
Cochran said the group went forward with the event using outside funding and drew “well over 100 students.” He later connected with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom and entered a legal process with the university that ended in a settlement rather than a court ruling.
He said the outcome included changes to rules he believed had allowed discrimination against religious groups in funding practices.
The experience, he said, taught him both the cost of fighting for constitutional rights and the need for citizens to stay engaged. “Sometimes it takes a little bit more, and you have to be involved,” Cochran said. “You have to fight for your rights. Otherwise, they’re going to get stepped on.”
Georgia lawmakers passed a state Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2025. Cochran said the law matters because conflicts over speech and religious liberty often come through institutional rules — at universities, local governments, and bureaucracies — that may go unchallenged.
“There are people working in the bureaucracy who don’t believe in free speech that will make small rules,” he said. In his view, stronger statutory protections can make it easier for citizens to defend their rights without enduring long legal fights.
“I think there’s always going to be a need for citizens to stand up and fight for their rights,” Cochran said, “but for the legislature to provide tools to make sure that we can protect speech and protect our right to worship Christ, that’s really important.”
Cochran said he wants to apply biblical conviction to public life without relying on what he called “career politician” instincts.
“I want to bring biblical values to the Capitol in a way that we haven’t seen from career politicians before,” he said.
Cochran’s central policy emphasis is abortion. He credits the heartbeat law as an important step and said he appreciates the work that went into passing it, but he argues it falls short of what scientific and biblical convictions require.
“The science tells us that human life begins at conception,” he said. “There’s nothing really scientifically special about a heartbeat, in terms of does that mean you should have rights or not.”
He argues Georgia should extend legal protection “from conception until natural death,” and said that is the first bill he would prioritize if elected.
“A protection at conception bill to ensure equal protection for the unborn and the born and for their mothers is step one,” he said.
Cochran also said abortion policy debates have shifted since the heartbeat law took effect, pointing to the rise of abortion-inducing drugs. Citing the Guttmacher Institute, he said there are more abortions in Georgia now than before the heartbeat law because of an increase in chemical abortions.
He called the pills “dangerous” and said the state should address what he described as out-of-state distribution. “They’re mailing these dangerous pills into our state, without talking to a doctor,” he said. “Georgia needs to handle that.”
At the same time, Cochran said pro-life efforts must include practical compassion for women and families. He said Georgia has increased funding for pregnancy resource centers and that churches are often better prepared than critics assume to help mothers in crisis.
“We love mothers whether they have had an abortion or not,” he said. “We want to be caring and compassionate, and we want to help.”
He also pointed to post-abortion counseling as a necessary part of ministry to women. “Providing that help and counseling is just as important as anything else we do in the pro-life movement,” he said.
Cochran acknowledges that pro-life Christians differ on strategy — from incremental restrictions to full abolition measures — but said he aims to keep moving forward while supporting policies that save lives in the meantime.
He said he would have supported the heartbeat bill because of its life-saving impact. “There are children alive today that would not be alive otherwise, and I’m thankful for that,” he said.
Cochran is a member of Christ Covenant Church in Buckhead, and said his church community has encouraged him, especially through the willingness of fellow believers to show up for pro-life education and outreach efforts.
Cochran said ultimately his candidacy is driven by convictions he believes belong at the center of public service, beginning with the protection of unborn life. “Protecting life is the number one job of the government,” he said.
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For more information, visit Cochran's website at CochranForGeorgia.com.
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